September 18, 2009

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."

29 comments:

Thank goodness we don't have a profligate spender, Ivy-League-educated but still not very smart, who offends entire regions of the European continent - I say, thank goodness we don't have someone like THAT as our president anymore.

I'm glad that's cleared up. Whew, I was afraid healthcare was going to be another xenophobic social program like welfare and be restricted to citizens.

But, um, maybe we should check with the Chinese first? After all, it is they who are funding our deficit spending. They might not appreciate us taking on a new multi-billion dollar project to invite the world. It would be a negative if they were to raise the interest rate on our credit card just as this was kicking off.

Obama can use the reconciliation process, to push in all this stuff, and get it with 51 votes. Can he get 51 Senate votes?

SLAM DUNK!

This is the price paid for electing Obama. Even McCain was a better choice, if for nothing else that he'd get frozen out by Dems. Obama can and will get this junk passed -- so he can create a permanent patronage system and flood America with Mexicans who become instant citizens and vote Democratic. Making him President for Life, his goal if you look at his fawning over Castro, Chavez, and Zelaya.

The only option Americans have is more grass-roots pressure, going after Senators like Al Franken to dig up EVERY bit of dirt, scandal, illegality, and so on like Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe did on ACORN. This should of course be extended to family, friends, and campaign backers, the extension of the treatment accorded Trig Palin, and Joe the Plumber.

"Comprehensive Immigration Reform" wasn't all that popular the last time around, so I don't see how it helps Obama to tie health care to unrestricted immigration. This is the political equivalent of tying a boat anchor to a drowning man.

For a guy whose supporters champion as some kind of genius he seems to be remarkably flat-footed when it comes to political strategy. He should have waited until a few months after health care passed before commenting on step two.

Eugene Volokh has this interesting critique of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, or more specifically their proffering of the phrase "undocumented workers", as a superior alternative to "illegal alien."

T99, for an ostensibly Scots-Irish guy, you sure seem to have a narrow view of the available options.

You must have never read "Albion's Seed II." The Scotch-Irish that settled Tel-Aviv (Tel-Aviv Scotch-Irish, or TASI) have some different political and ideological views from their cousins that settled the American frontier.

If you can ram through a one trillion dollar spending bill without going through the normal legislative process, what can't you ram through?

You're thinking about this from a point of view which has been filtered by the prism of an allegiance to archaic notions of the Rule of Law.

But your opponents don't operate under those constraints, and, when they gather in private, and talk amongst themselves, they laugh at you and deride & ridicule you for the manifest idiocy of having so constrained yourself.

If you cohabit a nation populated by the likes of those people, then you will never get limited government and the Rule of Law - instead, you will necessarily get unlimited government and the rule of the mob.

Your first [and most important] responsibility when confronted with a hopeless situation [such as you are about to find yourself in] is to summon the strength of character to admit to yourself the hopelessness of it all - only then can you begin to formulate your exit strategy.

To the extent that you continue to allow yourself to indulge in the fantasy of hope, you are only signing your own death warrant.

I think twinning health care and immigration is a bad thing for the democrats. We saw how outraged people were in 2007 over "comprehensive immigration" reform.

We have seen how fired up people have become over the health care debate in 2009.

In both cases the popular opinion went against the ruling elite and MSM.

Bringing these issues together reinforces what we knew all along. Namely, that illegal immigration imposes more costs on society than benefits, and that the current health care reform proposals are largely a way to get illegals insured.

Why? Because getting illegals insured will supposedly get them out of the emergency rooms. In 2007, amnesty proponents would not admit illegals were a burden to ERs.

Now, health care reform proponents are admitting illegals are a burden to ERs, and the cure is to get them insured.

Once Americans connect the dots, thanks to Obama, and realize that comprehensive immigration reform is the second act of health care reform, opposition will intensify.

I live in the town of North Bergen NJ. Here you can see illegals load up their shopping carts in the supermarket with the aid of foodstamps and WIC checks. And then wheel their purchases out to their waiting new model Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes automobiles.

I have a crazy idea concerning immigration reform: Ship every "undocumented worker" out of the country, then give the bill to Mexico.

You may be joking but for the nth time, in case someone's new to the argument:

A pen is all that's needed to remove all the illegals; enforce immigration law and legislate enormous penalties for employer violators - as in, going-out-of-business penalties. With a minimum of enforcement, violating immigration law would become a reverse lottery (not quite such long odds though) for employers that they'd stop employing illegals. Then turn off the welfare spigot for illegals and they'll all self-deport.

I share these posts with my family. They are mystified as to why anyone would think me Jewish. It does however amuse them.

Rednecks existed in the Midwest too -- one ancestor fought in the Civil War. But on the Northern Side. Secession is not a serious option.

One more aspect of the eternal war of the elites against the people. The elites have had it their way for a long time, because of all the money they made and control over the media. Now the money is partly gone, and the media is dying. Breitbart was very clever - he showed how the media was nothing more than a propaganda arm for Obama and Dems, and showed that to everyone.

If you want news, you cannot bother with the media. You MUST be online.

That's just bizarre. Does Obama really think he needs to sell to the hard left? Moderate democrats are more opposed to illegal immgrants being here, much less getting legalized, than most elected Republicans.

When Obama's starry-eyed white worshippers lose faith, they will be a terror on the democrats.

Svigor, good point on enforcement. A huge chunk of democrats would support punishing businesses for exploiting the illegal scab labor.

It wouldn't take long for companies to push the risk onto temp agencies supplying labor.

It is INCONCEIVABLE (and that word does mean what I think it means) that a country that looks the other way on illegals on every other point would deny them a cent of publicly-financed health care, even as it is rationed for the rest of us. All of this talk about verification is only a distraction.

This has got to be one of the most deceptive things I've witnessed a politician suggest publicly. Everybody knows that this point of contention in the health care debate is not the official status of the people benefiting off of the current system, but who they are and how they got here. None of that changes with immigration reform, they just get to cut to the head of the line, snubbing all the legal immigrants and the native born and naturalized citizens. Most legal US citizens support comprehensive deportations if my memory serves me back to Spring of 2007, not reform. I remember congressional staffers taking phones off the hook and email servers crashing around that time.

This slick double-speak shows Obama's contempt for the public and the presumed compliance the MSM will show in framing this issue. They've been saying 12 million for how many years? I'd wager it's over that in Texas and California combined.

From a strategic standpoint this looks like political suicide. He has taken two of the most unpopular pieces of legislation and made the first one's passage contingent upon the passage of the second. Why would the majority of congressmen risk their political life voting against their district and the American public on either of these issues?

The president just performed a shotgun wedding between two formerly separate and somewhat effective recent political movements that can now work as unified bloc. I am curious to see if an actual alliance forms and both groups will now work in tandem to hold back the tide.

> That's just bizarre. Does Obama really think he needs to sell to the hard left? Moderate democrats are more opposed to illegal immgrants <

His bosses don't feel the need to sell anything to any of us peons. They have decided to elect a new people, and they will impose this decision on us by fiat, with only the smallest fig leaf of democratic processes.

I am all for immigration (legal or illegal makes no difference to me). But I've always been aware of the equation that Immigration + Welfare State + Identity Politics = Despotism and the end of American liberties. I'm raising a glass to the past and bemoaning the future.

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